This is the argument that we need to refute if we are going to stop the Obama mandate (and his even worse “accommodation”).

The bishops have framed their objection to the Obama contraception mandate largely as a religious-liberty issue. There is great justice and wisdom to this formulation. On the other hand, it is simply not possible and perhaps unwise to avoid discussing contraception per se.

The religious-liberty argument isn’t sufficient for two reasons: The Church and the culture do not have the same understanding of religious liberty, and the status of contraception as health care is, in fact, very relevant to the question.

How do the Church and the culture differ in their understanding of religious liberty?

Blessed Pope John Paul II taught that religious liberty is the first of all rights. Human beings were put on this earth to be in relationship with God, so no state should impede the freedom of human beings to practice religion. Religious liberty is also closely allied with freedom of conscience. No religion should impose its practices on others. People’s religious convictions are at the core of who they are, and individuals should not be forced to profess beliefs they do not hold.

Such principles are not as much in play in the current dispute as one might think. This country was founded in large part by groups of individuals who were prevented from practicing their religion in their homelands. Some of them arrived here with the hopes of setting up a confessional state, a state inhabited by members of the same faith tradition and governed by the beliefs of that tradition. They wanted liberty to practice their religion but did not intend to extend it to others.

The necessity of getting along with one’s neighbors and the religious diversity that soon characterized this country meant that the founders began to practice a kind of utilitarian form of religious liberty: “We will let you practice your religion if you will let us practice ours.”

A second utilitarian dimension of the American understanding of religious liberty is that the Founding Fathers believed religion to be useful for forming the virtuous citizenry necessary for democracy. Citizens are ultimately responsible for the quality of the law of the land and if not virtuous the citizenry would be subject to the wiles of those who had totalitarian designs (watch out America!). So the Founding Fathers took steps to privilege religious practice in certain ways (tax deductions, etc.).

Even this utilitarian understanding of religious liberty is being eroded. Although Americans profess to be religious, our public square and certainly the mainstream media are hostile to religion as something private and perhaps superstitious. It is seen more as divisive and irrational than something essential to the democratic enterprise.

So now, rather than attempting to foster religious practice, our public policies simply tolerate it — sometimes, it seems, while holding their noses.

Our culture seems to value much more highly the “right” to sexual liberty/license, to the point that the culture wants to force people who hold that there is a clear morality that should govern sexual behavior to pay for the choices of those who think the only boundary for sexual morality is whether or not the sex is consensual.

Anyone watching our movies and TV shows and who knows the rate of pornography use would quickly conclude that Americans believe that life without constant and polymorphous forms of sex is a life that cannot be happy.

Those who wish to enshrine sexual license as a foundational right are cleverly, if not diabolically, piggybacking on the American determination to provide affordable health care for all.

Margaret Sanger deviously managed to get contraception to be something that the respectable medical profession dispensed rather than something that was sold alongside pornography in seedy establishments (where condoms once were sold and where contraceptives belong).

Americans are so fixated on sexual license and health care that pleas for the importance of respecting religious liberty (again, now understood as toleration of antiquated, irrational practices) falls on ears not able to understand what is at stake.

Americans would object to policies that prevent religious individuals to worship, but we are having a hard time seeing how funding contraception violates religious liberty. Contraception is understood to be basic health care, as Hampel states, not quite equivalent to blood transfusions, but essential health care nonetheless.

I think we must expand the ground of objections to the mandate and make the case against baby-killing contraception, indeed all contraception. We need to explain how it is not only a religious issue, but a health-care issue and a social issue as well.

Contraception is bad for women’s health, for relationships and for society. The mandate is insisting that Catholic institutions fund baby-killing “drugs” that prevent no disease, are Group 1 carcinogens and are demonstrably connected to an increase in babies being aborted, babies being born to unwed mothers, and children and mothers living in poverty. Something is wrong with requiring any employer to fund such destructive “drugs,” let alone institutions that exist to preserve morality, that exist to try to persuade people not to engage in activity that leads to the harms just listed.

Bishop William Lori argued that making Catholics fund contraceptives, abortifacient contraception and sterilizations is like making kosher delis serve pork. Actually, it is more like making all of us, and particularly the Anti-Smoking League, fund cigarettes.

Jews do not argue that eating pork is something no one should do, but Catholics do argue that using contraception is something no one should do; among other reasons, the Church condemns it as against the natural law; it is against the health of women, the health of relationships and the health of society. (Anyone who needs convincing should read Mary Eberstadt’s “Vindication of Humanae Vitae” in the August 2008 issue of First Things. This essay has been included in Eberstadt’s new book, Adam and Eve After the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution, published this month by Ignatius Press).

And is it true that we should force Jehovah’s Witness institutions to fund blood transfusions?

If we did so, it would be because natural-law arguments demonstrate that blood transfusions are not against objective morality. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t argue that they are; rather, they oppose blood transfusions because of an idiosyncratic interpretation of Scripture.

Even so, why should employers fund procedures they oppose for any reason? People are free to refuse to work for institutions they don’t want to be associated with.

The problem here is not with Jehovah’s Witnesses, but with the government mandate that employees will receive their health care through their employers. If employees were given money to buy their own health care, they could choose what services they wanted funded.

Many think that the bishops should not push the issue of contraception because it will make the bishops seem ridiculous, especially since most sexually active Catholic women have used contraception at some point. It will take the focus off the all-important religious-liberty question.

But this battle will likely not be decided in the voting booth or even in Congress. I share Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s confidence that the courts will not be friendly to Obama’s health-care plans.

Explaining why contraception is so bad may not be the job of the bishops at this time, but priests and laypeople can certainly use this opportunity.

Rick Santorum is doing an amazing and courageous job of explaining the social consequences of contraception, and others, especially on the Internet, are trying to get the word out about the health consequences. All of us need to do our part with our families, friends and co-workers.
Make no mistake about it: This is an epic battle, and we need to fight it skirmish by skirmish.

Janet Smith is the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.

Comments

I don’t disagree with you, but the mandate applies to ALL employers even those who do not take govt. money.

Hence there is no way out of this. If something is going to be mandated, why not include NFP as well. This way everybody is happy.

Posted by Doug on Monday, Apr 16, 2012 1:57 PM (EDT):

Joe writes: “the Church takes tax money, so its hospitals are in part federally subsidized.”
The Catholic Church, by its own account, has looked to Caesar for support since Constantine’s “conversion” ca. 1700 years ago. Its Protestant offshoots followed suit. In fact, during the more violent parts of the Reformation each side’s spokesmen took refuge under the wings of pro- or anti-RC rulers. Cf. Ruth 2:12 and Ps 17:8. Now the various churches need to spend time and effort in walking the tightrope that comes with such aid.
Jesus OTOH had this in mind: “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them: because they are not of the world, as I also am not of the world. I pray not that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from evil. They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world.” John 17:14 ff, Douay

Posted by Joe on Friday, Apr 13, 2012 4:40 PM (EDT):

One problem I do not see being addressed: the Church takes tax money, so its hospitals are in part federally subsidized. That make em no longer neutral. If you take Ceasar’s money, you become his servant. We are living on the legacy of an evaporating age. The cultural is not friendly to Christianity is many respects.

Janet Smith is right on several counts although I still maintain the necessity for parish priests to preach on all matters of human life including opposition to contraception—with a difference. We can sometimes speak and write about God’s Commandments and lose sight of the Beatitudes, guides to blessedness and happiness. All of which is predicated on his “will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” In the modern world of our land and shores beyond ours is a culture which celebrates comfort, convenience and the avoidance of pain of which “the contraceptive mentality” is only a part. Much of this resists God’s law and human nature first spoken in the garden, the call to “be fertile and multiply” assuring our continuance, a point made dramatically clear when Noah, wife and their thee sons and their wives exited the ark after the deluge. With our declining American birthrate in a few years I will be depending on three workers to meet my Social Security check. The continuing vitality of any nation requires children. Many “moderns” today would, however, say that I or the Catholic Church want women continuously barefoot and pregnant. The sad fact is many couples today are infertile and there are more married couples seeking children through adoption than their are children aborted. For my part and in my homilies I speak about the blessings of children ( Thank God for our parents our existence ). We are called to face down popular arguments, children are “expensive”, require so much attention and care etc. As so many matters in our micro-wave culture the long term slowly cultivated benefits of children is either missed or obscured. Yes, we humans take so long to grow and mature and require so much attention, but that is our benefit, with aging like a good wine we improve. And how do we define home? Painstaking as it may seem child-bearing and parenting proffers many hidden treasures. Those couples who are repelled by the thought of having a child, “not now but later, perhaps, maybe”, lose sight of how empty their lives may be and certainly will be “later”. Having a child does not condemn a mom and dad to an eternity of diaper changing. Children can grow up to be delightful helpmates. “It is not good for man to be alone”, children included, some assembly required. Remember when diapers were not disposable and families were larger? Just an aside. Children who are lovingly integrated into a family of two or three or more redefine their relationships on a continuous basis leaving little room for boredom or unhealthy addictions. All those brothers and sisters and cousins and uncles and aunts and grandchildren and great grandchildren. It does require adaptability but isn’t that the nature of be-ing, human being? Chickens don’t stop laying eggs, do they? I am still finding my way through this maze of cultural nonsense, often money-making propositions—buy this for that false good, much of which leads to disappointment and loneliness. It will require a new conversation and a fresh homiletic format for priests.
Fr. Tom Bartolomeo
Diocese of Rockford

Posted by Bill McKenzie on Saturday, Mar 24, 2012 7:42 PM (EDT):

Janet says it will be more effective to emphasize the negative health consequences of artificial contraceptives and deemphasize the religious liberty approach.

At first I said to myself upon reading this “Well at least by doing this we will be confronting contraceptives head-on, not hiding behind a political argument. But as I continued reading I realized that this is not actually the case.

The Church opposes artificial contraception because it is intrinsically evil, not because of health issues. It distorts human intimacy and marriage, and leads to the host of other personal and social problems we know so well today.

This is the message the world, including the Catholic world needs to hear. If someone is flirting with the idea of being a suicide bomber we can either say “But that will kill you too!” (as if killing “safely” is OK), or we can say “But it is wrong to kill people.”

If we tell people not to use contraceptives because they are unsafe our position will evaporate as soon as “safe” contraceptives are developed. But if we tell them that using contraceptives is inhuman we will be telling them the truth and we will never have to change our position.

Isn’t it time we told the whole Catholic position? If we won’t tell the truth then maybe we don’t really believe what we say.

Posted by Mark on Monday, Mar 19, 2012 11:08 PM (EDT):

Kevin: No, expecting 3-4 children isn’t horrible at all. But irrational fear of oodles of children or not, couples find ways to limit the size of their family to what they feel is best for them. In the 19th century, the majority of Americans were rural, and there was often an economic advantage to large families. These days, trying to provide for the post-secondary education of even 2 children is beyond the reach of most families. The church is no doubt aware of such factors, and I will be so bold as to suggest that acknowledgement of social issues like these may have contributed to the softening their position on the evils of limiting the number of children. I just hope that they soften their stance on the allowable methods to do so as well one day. Great chatting with you here.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Monday, Mar 19, 2012 4:57 PM (EDT):

While the Church’s position - or perhaps more accurately the pope’s position - may have “evolved,” Church teaching on the matter of contraception has not changed substantively. It might be important to note that I have had very little exposure to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. That work is not official Church doctrine, and combined with concerns that some authors have taken it even beyond what JP II intended, I think it’s a potentially unreliable measure of the current state of Church teaching on the matter of NFP and artificial contraception.

Pope Pius Xi said, “First consideration is due to the offspring, which many have the boldness to call the disagreeable burden of matrimony and which they say is to be carefully avoided by married people not through virtuous continence (which Christian law permits in matrimony when both parties consent) but by frustrating the marriage act.” NFP clearly complies, at least in letter, with the “virtuous continence” exception that to my knowledge has always existed. The only thing that is debatable is whether in some instances its practice violates the intent or spirit of that exception, since it relies on knowledge that wasn’t available when that exception was first uttered.

I would agree that there is much that the Church can do to improve people’s lives, foster greater adherence to Church teaching and eliminate the guilt that many people have over this matter. But it has mostly to do with eliminating what for the believer is really an irrational fear - that if they do nothing to prevent it, they will automatically have oodles and oodles of children or at least more than they can handle. From 1800 to 1900, family size in this country decreased from 7 to 3.5 children, and that was without the benefit of either NFP or artificial contraceptives, which were illegal at the time. Is expecting to have 3-4 children so horrible? I think not.

Posted by Mark on Monday, Mar 19, 2012 11:24 AM (EDT):

Kevin: Reading the articles you linked to, it seems pretty clear that the church position has evolved. There existed a time when fertility methods were in contradiction to church doctrine, yet there is broad agreement within the church and the faithful that this is now sanctioned. As the second article even notes, John Paul II seems to have abandoned the need for any legitimate reason at all to use NFP. I of course have no problem with this view, the decision to limit children should not be the acid-test to determine one’s Catholicity.
I merely suggest that given this change in the morality of avoiding pregnancy, a change in which methods are permissible is not out of the question. By this I refer to barrier methods. And that would alleviate a tremendous amount of scrupulosity. It would remove a major impediment that places a huge number of Catholics who practice such methods in direct contradiction to the church. I think this would also strengthen the church.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Monday, Mar 19, 2012 12:44 AM (EDT):

Mark,
I don’t believe the Church would ever permit barrier methods. Health concerns (e.g. AIDS) are a non-starter since even in a country where 90% of the population is HIV-positive, a man and woman in a faithful marriage don’t have to worry about it.

As for NFP being illegitimate according to the teachings of Pius XI in Casti connubii, I have read the criticisms of NFP (such as http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/42_NFP.pdf and http://www.traditioninaction.org/Questions/B320_FamilyPlanning.html), and while I agree that they point out potential abuses of NFP, I don’t agree that they make a good case that NFP is never legitimate. For example, in the first link, each of the testimonials (<ul>People Know that NFP is a sin</ul>) either lacks substance or identifies a clear abuse of NFP as I learned it (e.g. using it to avoid having any more children for selfish reasons, using it when both spouses have not consented, etc.) They also ignore other methods of delaying fertility that one could find an abuse of the moral law, such as breastfeeding a child longer than one would otherwise prefer just to delay the possibility of getting pregnant again.

I think that while NFP can be abused to the point of violating the moral law, there are clearly situations where its practice is legitimate, such as when one is unable to breastfeed and so is unable to enjoy the natural delay in a return to fertility that breastfeeding typically results in. While we must always strive to use the knowledge we have for the greater glory of God rather than our own selfish benefit, we must remember that scrupulosity is also a sin.

Posted by Mark on Friday, Mar 16, 2012 9:47 PM (EDT):

Kevin: I appreciate your honest reply. I also realize that no matter how compelling an argument the other makes, neither of us is going to change the other’s mind here, but it is interesting to exchange views.

I don’t know, it just seems to me that the church has changed its position here over the years, and there’s no reason to think it won’t again. It the 1930s, Pope Pius made it pretty clear that frustrating the purpose of the conjugal act for any reason “however grave”, was sinful. With HV in the 1960s, Pope Paul VI allowed that “serious reasons” permitted Catholics to use methods like NFP, but reiterated that artificial methods were sinful. It doesn’t seem improbable to me that the church may one day deem that barrier methods are permissible. This would negate the health risk issue, the problem that hormonal methods can be abortifacient , and would greatly improve the health of women in developing countries where AIDS is a major problem.

I didn’t attempt to claim that the “notion that sex is a necessary evil” is church teaching, although St. Augustine (“Nothing is so much to be shunned as sex relations”) and others certainly devoted much thought and effort in this area, and the effects linger today. I’m surprised to learn that I am hopelessly stuck in the 60’s and that the current state of Catholic teachings has come a long way since then. That’s a new one for me; usually I’m accused of being a symptom of liberal modernism in the church by the pre-V2 crowd nostalgic for the days when the mass was in Latin.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Friday, Mar 16, 2012 1:22 PM (EDT):

Mark,
I didn’t catch that the debate was about semantics. No, I wouldn’t consider “don’t want any more children” to be a “serious reason” or even a “good reason” to use NFP.

As for whether I would use artificial contraception if the Vatican permitted it, no I wouldn’t if for no other reason than to avoid its health dangers. But the fact of the matter is I find it inconceivable that the Church would change that teaching. The teaching on artificial contraception, like any other Church teaching, is not merely arbitrary, but is based on sound reasoning, and barring some change in the facts on which that reasoning is based, what is true at one time is true at another. That said, Church teaching can change over time as scientific discoveries and theological understanding, among other things, shed more light on the subject. For example, while the Church has always taught that abortion is evil, her view of the gravity of the sin of abortion at various stages of gestation (as well as civil law), has changed over the centuries as science and medicine revealed more knowledge about human reproduction, culminating in the early 19th century when the process was finally fully understood. While it’s possible that some bit of knowledge might someday permit the Church to make a change to her teachings on contraception, at this stage of the game that seems highly unlikely.

Posted by savvy on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 9:18 PM (EDT):

Coast Ranger,

Go easy on Mark. He’s not even aware of the current state of Catholic teachings, because this guy is so deep into the 60s. I t’s this crowd that refuses to come on board and is a hinderance to the new evangelization, which is going to go on without them.

Posted by savvy on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 6:24 PM (EDT):

“Your desire to have all Catholics fall into step with Vatican dogma suggests that you don’t want more religion, you want more police. Unthinking obedience to authority is not what this country was founded on, but when it comes to the church this quality is somehow admirable.”

What makes you think that nobody here has studied these positions or applied them. Your arrogance about other people’s views and refusal to listen to them, is just arrogance.

You can’t accuse the church of doing the same, because like I said the conversation has come a long way since the 60s. A LONG WAY.

You are the one who’s out of touch.

Posted by savvy on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 6:16 PM (EDT):

Kevin,

Cut Mark some slack, he’s right about the spacing of children. He’s just clueless about the current state of Post V2 theology, and keeps repeating the same old 60s arguments that we have all heard before.

Posted by savvy on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 6:08 PM (EDT):

Mark,

The point is that despite what you think about the majority of Catholics. There are Catholic Employers who think IS going to violate their conscience. As James, pointed out there are more of us out there than you think.

You also said, “This notion that sex is a necessary evil to propagate new little Catholics has got to change.”

This is not even Catholic teaching. Where have you been?

This is my point about the 60s crowd totally being out of touch with Post V2 and contemporary scholastic theology.

Have you ever read Theology of the Body BTW, or Love and Responsibility?

I didn’t think so.

Catholic teaching on human sexuality is profoundly beautiful.

You are missing out on so much, because of the constant wilful ignorance.

Posted by Mark on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 5:42 PM (EDT):

Kevin: Please dude. The Vatican says “serious reasons”. Pope Paul VI really lowered the bar from the Pope Pius IX days (casti connubii) when it used to be “grave reasons”. Now you’re telling me that “I don’t want any more kids” is a good enough reason? So if you have a “good reason”, whatever that means, you can use NFP indefinitely.

Let me ask you (or any of the others) this. If the Vatican were to change their position for some reason, and allow some forms of artificial contraception, would you still object to using it?

Posted by Mark on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 5:29 PM (EDT):

James - yeah I assumed it was ironic, because once I started reading the report it’s clear you know your stats. Actually I think it’s a great name :)

I read through our report. If I read your conclusions correctly, it seems that only when you redefine the survey sample to omit Catholics who do not attend church at least weekly, those who are already pregnant, and even nuns (?), does the percent that use artificial birth control drop below 50%. Did I get that right?

I don’t find that hard to believe at all. But I’d wager that before this uproar over the Guttmacher report, if you asked a random sample of Americans to guess what percentage of all practicing Catholic women use artificial birth control, the guess would have been much lower.

I agree that the Guttmacher report methodology is imperfect, intentional or not. But don’t you find it troublesome that in order to support your conclusion, you have to exclude 70% of the self-described Catholics (those that don’t attend church at least weekly)?

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 4:40 PM (EDT):

Mark said:

“No member of the faithful could possibly deny that the Church is competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law.” I still marvel at the sheer arrogance of that statement.

If that statement is truly arrogant, then it will only be exposed by someone who comes forward in complete humility to refute it.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 4:18 PM (EDT):

Um, exactly what is inconsistent between “It doesn’t condone the use of NFP to indefinitely avoid pregnancy without a good reason to do so” and “for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an INDEFINITE period of time”?

Both statements permit a couple to use NFP to avoid conceiving for an indefinite period as long as they have a good reason to do so.

Posted by Coast Ranger on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 4:00 PM (EDT):

Mark wrote: “[H]ere’s another gem from HV: ‘No member of the faithful could possibly deny that the Church is competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law.’ I still marvel at the sheer arrogance of that statement.”

Like I said, he’s either a troll or an inveterate heretic.

Posted by Mark on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 1:57 PM (EDT):

Kevin: Perhaps you forgot to actually read Humanae Vitae. From the Vatican’s own website:

With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an INDEFINITE period of time.

In case you somehow disagree with Pope Paul VI on this, here’s another gem from HV: “No member of the faithful could possibly deny that the Church is competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law.” I still marvel at the sheer arrogance of that statement. Call the Vatican, ask them to tell you what your opinion is, and get back to me.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 12:35 PM (EDT):

Mark said,

But the church says you CAN have sex without consequences, NFP is just fine for that. Catholics may use mathematics to avoid pregnancy, but they may not resort to physics or chemistry.

Actually, the Church accepts the use of NFP by couples who have a good reason to delay pregnancy, such as financial or health issues, or are merely trying to reasonably space children. It doesn’t condone the use of NFP to indefinitely avoid pregnancy without a good reason to do so. The prohibition against artificial methods has much more to do with the fact that they are a willful separation of the procreative and unitive aspects of sex, and may even cause an early abortion, than that they are technical and artificial.

Posted by mac on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 12:01 PM (EDT):

I disagree that educating the public on the Catholic vision of health care is a losing battle. On the contrary, the battle over abortion has shown - we have the best arguments - we can persuade and win the conversation. On contraception, the old motto “Better living through chemistry” is not a winner. We need to educate women that the pill does not regulate or assist nature - it destroys it. We need to muster all the science and experiential data of the last generation of contraception failure and reeducate society.

This is an uphill battle because the science has been politicized and Planned Parenthood (aka “Murder Incorporated”) is wealthy, powerful and fanatical. Again, the Bishops and their surrogates need to grow a spine and marshal the evidence and equip the faithful to take the arguments to the public square.

A little Gospel evangelization would not hurt either. After all, St. Paul did not talk about ethical mandates until he had laid out the mystical vision of salvation in Christ and our participation in that mystery.

Posted by Rebecca Hilton on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 11:56 AM (EDT):

One: Blood transfusions are matter of life and death
Two: Pregnancy is not a disease
Three: More people die from beig overweight than from an absence of artificial birth control that compels them to a dangergous pregnancy-and since to date at least, men can be fat but not pregnant. How about free fat blockers in the name of sexual equality?
Four: pregnancy can be avoided for FREE. In addition, in a culture obsessed with all things “organic” and “free range”, one in which my shampoo bottle assures me in bold print that its contents have not been tested on a dog….is it really such a great thing to shoot your body up with hormones or chemicals that keep you from ovulating for 6 months at a time?

Artifical birth control (artificial is important here since “natural” birth control is free) has been available and cheap for 50 years. Availability of birth control was marketed as an end to unwanted pregnancy, a freeing of women from sexual oppression and was guaranteed not to promote promiscuity in kids.

How’s that been working?

Use it if you want, if it’s so cheap the government is will wiliing give it out for free, buy it yourself. Me, I’d ratehr have free aspirin to deal with these kind of arguments.

Posted by James J. Heaney on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 7:24 AM (EDT):

Mark,

Although the name of my institute is plainly tongue-in-cheek, if you have any criticisms of my findings, I would appreciate it if you shared them with me. If not, please accept the data as reported. My methods and procedures exactly matched those of the Guttmacher Institute, and are extensively documented in our report.

The James J. Heaney Institute has an absurd name simply to illustrate that any idiot with a computer, a stats class, and PSPP can do for free exactly what the Guttmacher Institute does for a million bucks a year in government grants—a state of a fairs no less absurd than our Institute’s name.

Thanks,
James

Posted by Mark on Thursday, Mar 15, 2012 1:18 AM (EDT):

c matt: maybe you should learn to think your arguments through better too. Regarding the fact that Catholic women use contraception as much as other women:
“…that point is irrelevant. If most Catholic (or other) women believed 2+2=5, that would not make it so. Regardles, the question at issue is not “what do most Catholics believe?” The issue is whether an institution or individual who DOES so believe is required to violate his conscience.

True enough, 2+2=5 cannot be so, it is verifiable that they are wrong. Thus you and the church feel that most Catholic women who use contraception are also wrong. The problem then is that the majority of Catholics feel that the HHS mandate would not violate their conscience. So if the church’s “issue” is that all (or even most) Catholics are outraged, when they are not, then it’s clear that the motive of this opposition to the mandate is political and not religious.

To my question wondering if there can be no dissent among Catholics without someone tossing out the term heretic – “Many, if not most Catholics are probably heretics on one point or another at some time in their lives, but there it is. Of course, being a heretic does not make one necessarily an apostate, but often does lead to it.”

So what’s your point? If the church is composed of “heretics” because they don’t accept a minor and divisive item of dogma from the Vatican, where does that leave it? Do you prefer to drive them away and be left with a small group of hardcore zealots? Will repeating to them that they are heretics or apostates help them see the light, as if they merely weren’t aware of it? Obviously not. Sticking your fingers in your ears won’t resolve the situation, nor will alienating the majority of the church.

You eloquently sum up the position of the majority of Catholics as:
(1) I want to have sex without consequences (2) The Church says I can’t (3) therefore the Church is wrong. In other words, it has nothing to do with reason, but rather willful submission of reason to the passions.

But the church says you CAN have sex without consequences, NFP is just fine for that. Catholics may use mathematics to avoid pregnancy, but they may not resort to physics or chemistry. This notion that sex is a necessary evil to propagate new little Catholics has got to change. Your desire to have all Catholics fall into step with Vatican dogma suggests that you don’t want more religion, you want more police. Unthinking obedience to authority is not what this country was founded on, but when it comes to the church this quality is somehow admirable.

Posted by savvy on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 8:53 PM (EDT):

Defender,

Two wrongs do not make a right. It’s just that if the church takes Cesar’s money the church as to do as the state dictates. The principle of subsidiarity holds that govt, should be as local as possible. Charity should be voluntary, not by govt. mandate. Catholics have been in bed with socialists for far too long, to their own demise.

I am not saying we should jump in with the GOP, but it’s time to take a stand, even if it’s an independent one.

Posted by savvy on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 8:41 PM (EDT):

Mark,

It also says, that 98% have used it at some time. It does not say how many continue to do so. The post V2 crowd is into personalism and the theology of the body. Move over from the 60s and join the conversation. Instead of trying to cause a schism.

Christianity makes this outlandish claim, that God became a human being and has a human body. The sacraments are tied in with the incarnation, and therefore to change them would be creating a whole different religion.

There is also nothing new about “new” ideas, It’s a reversion back to pre-Christian thinking.

Posted by savvy on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 6:23 PM (EDT):

Mark,

Thanks for your response. You can add to your list of complaints. The failure to teach authentic Catholic teachings in favour of cultural or political correctness.

It’s a fact that there has been a don’t ask, don’t tell, policy on contraception for years. This mandate highlights the fact that it cannot be ignored any longer.

Being Catholic is not easy. You think it’s easy for us to live the Gospel without compromise?

We still try to do our best.

The teaching on contraception is not a new one. What motivated Christianity to reject artificial contraception for 1900 years. Did Christianity suddenly become holier, smarter, and wiser in 1930?

Nobody here asked that contracepting Catholics should leave. We just think it’s high time, you start studying church teachings on these subjects.

We can make excuses too, but instead chose to study and spent time in prayer over this.

It’s actually not fair, that some people give all, and some are trying to pick and choose what they find easy and then insist the church change 2,000 years of Christianity.

If you are frustrated with the state of things, then so are we pal.

Posted by cowalker on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 5:47 PM (EDT):

Posted by c matt on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 10:50 AM (EST):
“ou keep talking about risk factors, like the automobile driving risk. So what if most, or even all Amercians drive autommobiles and want to take that risk?”

Posted by c matt on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 11:22 AM (EST):
“The difficulty with trying to convince our current culture is that our culture does not want to be convinced. Just look at the comments above about valuing freedom (really, license, not freedom, but that’s another discussion). Our culture values this ‘freedom’ over any risks, harms, or scientific facts. The Pill is poison? So what - I prefer the freedom to pick my poison. But it is worse - at least picking your own poison might be a defensible position, but not only do they demand the right to pick, but your obligation to pay for their poison, damn your right choose not to.”

The point of my posts is that trying to reverse the HHS mandate by emphasizing the health risks of the pill is a losing strategy. Clearly Americans prefer the freedom and independence of traveling by car to using mass transportation, despite the risk of death or injury in accidents and the cost to health of automobile-casued air pollution. They have chosen to accept the risk. The majority have the same attitude about the right of Americans to own guns. A population that doesn’t pay attention to the higher risk of breast cancer and other cancers, heart disease and diabetes caused by obesity and a sedentary life-style, aren’t going to abandon the birth control pill because there is a slightly elevated risk of breast cancer.

I would prefer that my taxes go toward building trains and expanding bus systems rather than continually adding and widening highways. But I don’t get to pick that.

Thank you, Dr. Smith! The HHS mandate and the so called “accommodation” are incredible opportunities to engage the culture on the REAL COSTS of CONTRACEPTION - i.e., that CONTRACEPTION IS BAD…AND BAD FOR US. It kills souls. It can kill bodies, including the lives of tiny embryos. It’s adverse effects on women’s health including an increased risk of acquiring and transmitting STDs, increased risk of stroke, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, depression, decreased libido, increased incidence of abortion for “contraceptive failures” with its own risks, and even adverse effects on men, relationships, physical attraction, increased divorce, all with attendant economic and environmental detriments need to be addressed by a wide array of professionals, with a major PR campaign. The bishops should be emboldened to preach on faith and morals, i.e., why contraception is intrinsically evil, immoral, wrong, unjust, bad,...and motivated to collaborate with an organized consortium of laity to teach on its other costs. I know of no person who “gets it on contraception” and has heretical views on marriage, abortion, or even the social justice principle of subsidiarity. This is a critical election year where Mr. Obama and Obamacare could be ousted and real healthcare reform ultimately enacted which puts individuals, not employers or governments in control. Silence and ambiguity on contraception will help Mr. Obama win on all fronts, even among Catholics. Yes, fight the legal, legislative and political battles in the name of religious liberty and conscience rights, not just for Catholic “religious institutions” but for all individuals, but don’t neglect the other fronts. It would be a shame for the bishops, and other individuals, should Mr. Obama win, to go have to go without health insurance in order to witness to the Truth about LOVE and LIFE. Cardinal Dolan has said that he wants be a saint and especially now by wearing red, he is reminded that martyrdom has been a reality for the saints. Is health insurance required for holiness? Is it even a guarantee of health? Are he and other clergy contemplating what may result in the ultimate witness for their friends?

Posted by c matt on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 4:06 PM (EDT):

Some day I will learn to type better.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 2:21 PM (EDT):

mac said:

One of the scientific claims made by Dr. Smith is that the use of contraception in preventative health actually leads to an INCREASE in abortion. For many this is a counter-intuitive claim. I should like to see Dr. Smith link to the study(ies) upon which this claim is based.

First of all, it’s only counter-intuitive if the perception that the undesired results of a desirable act can be avoided does not lower the barrier to engaging in that act, or if the efficacy of the “protection” is good enough to prevent enough pregnancies in cases where someone would have had sex anyway to outweigh the additional pregnancies that are going to result from increased sexual activity (which will happen even with perfect use of contraception). Since the idea that the perception that pregnancy can be avoided even if one has sex will not result in more sexual activity is itself counter-intuitive, you’re pretty much left having to prove the other case, and for that there is evidence against you.

The teen pregnancy rate has been declining for a little over 20 years now. The pro-contraception folks keep promoting the idea that it’s mostly contraception that should get the credit for this ( http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_121733.html ). However, the interesting thing is that the numbers don’t support that idea at all. For example, we know that the number of women age 15-19 who had ever had sexual intercourse went down by 6.3% from 2002 to 2006 ( http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_031.pdf [p. 14 of the report, p. 21 in the PDF] ). We also know that the pregnancy rate for teens 15-19 went down by only 4.7% in the same period ( http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/USTPtrends.pdf [p. 6 of the report, p. 7 in the PDF] ). Finally, we know from the first report that contraceptive use by females age 15-19 went up by 2.8% during that period (based on contraceptive use at last intercourse, p. 23 of the report, p. 30 in the PDF).

From those numbers, it looks to me like increasing the use of artificial contraceptives has a negative rather than positive effect on pregnancy rates, since the drop in the percentage of teen girls having sex should alone have resulted in a reduction in teen pregnancy rates greater than what was actually measured. Not only that, but even if contraceptives did have a positive effect on pregnancy rates, the additional impact that they could have is extremely limited given the already-high usage rates among sexually-active teens (85.6% of women and 92.5% of men according to second page of the first report referred to in the prior paragraph).

Posted by RVM on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 2:15 PM (EDT):

TO: C. Matt

—-You stated…
“I also disagree that it is a tax. It is a forced contribution. A tax can be avoided by not entering into a transaction that is taxed. But here, you are being required to enter in to the transaction (i.e., the insurance comapny is required to provide the coverage, and the individual is being required to pruchase insurance through the individual manadate).”

——One can indeed avoid this tax (or if you prefer “forced contribution”) by not runing a hospital, charity, or nono-profit organization. In truth, like most taxes it is pretty unavoidable.

“Besides, under natural law, a law that vilates the natural law is no law at all and you are under no moral compulsion to comply with it (you may be financially or politically compelled, but not morally).”

——Natural law is a quaint notion that lacks legal standing.

Posted by c matt on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 1:22 PM (EDT):

If the science is in our favor, then make it available in a way that shows integrity and permanence and which will resonate beyond the walls of the Churches

The difficulty with trying to convince our current culture is that our culture does not want to be convinced. Just look at the comments above about valuing freedom (really, license, not freedom, but that’s another discussion). Our culture values this “freedom” over any risks, harms, or scientific facts. The Pill is poison? So what - I prefer the freedom to pick my poison. But it is worse - at least picking your own poison might be a defensible position, but not only do they demand the right to pick, but your obligation to pay for their poison, damn your right choose not to.

It is difficult, if not impossible to persuade someone whose ethical system is based upon will rather than reason. Our culture no longer have a common base of shared first principles upon which we can argue and persuade.

Posted by c matt on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 1:11 PM (EDT):

How is it that the Church’s reasoning regarding contraception, fertility and the nature of sex is now invalid?

Simple:

(1) I want to have sex without consequences
(2) The Church says I can’t

therefore

(3) The Church is wrong.

In other words, it has nothing to do with reason, but rather willful submission of reason to the passions.

Posted by c matt on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 1:06 PM (EDT):

Can there truly be no dissent among Catholics without the most zealous calling those who have opposing views from theirs a heretic?

Having a dissenting or opposing view from another Catholic, where no definitive doctrine or teaching has been defined (i.e., where differing opinions are allowed) is not heretical.

However, holding a dissenting opinion from defined doctrine or teaching of the Church is the very definition of heretic. So basically, if you say “I know the Church’s teaching on X, but I think the Church is wrong, therefore I hold not X” by definition, you would be a heretic. Many, if not most Catholics are probably heretics on one point or another at some time in their lives, but there it is. Of course, being a heretic does not make one necessarily an apostate, but often does lead to it.

Posted by c matt on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 12:50 PM (EDT):

You keep talking about risk factors, like the automobile driving risk. So what if most, or even all Amercians drive autommobiles and want to take that risk? Americans are not prevented from driving because the Amish are not forced to buy automobiles. And, as the studies cited by Mark demonstrate, there is apparently no shortage of contraceptive use. Even Fluke can get them pretty readily.

Aside from Fluke’s lies about the availability, what EVIDENCE do you have that keeping the status quo - non-coverage for contraceptives - will prevent the 98% of American women who use them from taking wahtever risk they want? I see absolutely nothing from the administration that supports this “crisis” in coverage.

Posted by c matt on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 12:40 PM (EDT):

I also disagree that it is a tax. It is a forced contribution. A tax can be avoided by not entering into a transaction that is taxed. But here, you are being required to enter in to the transaction (i.e., the insurance comapny is required to provide the coverage, and the individual is being required to pruchase insurance through the individual manadate).

Besides, under natural law, a law that vilates the natural law is no law at all and you are under no moral compulsion to comply with it (you may be financially or politically compelled, but not morally).

Posted by Defender on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 12:40 PM (EDT):

@Savvy: Rationing healthcare to save money is backdoor socialism. The next thing you know health insurance will have to cover euthanasia, because grandma is too old and costly too keep around or surgical abortion because it’s cheaper than childbirth.

But—this is exactly what private health insurance does when they deny treatment or prescription drugs to individuals. These are things that Kaiser Permanente are guilty of!

the point is that Catholic women’s views on contraceptive are much the same as those of other religions, despite being the only ones whose church prohibits it

Yes. But that point is irrelevant. If most Catholic (or other) women believed 2+2=5, that would not make it so. Regardles, the question at issue is not “what do most Catholics believe?” The issue is whether an institution or individual who DOES so believe is required to violate his conscience.

Posted by c matt on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 12:14 PM (EDT):

If employees were given money to buy their own health care, they could choose what services they wanted funded.

Yes and no - depends on how a mandate is worded. IF a mandate says policies must cover X, then having the employee pay for it only shifts the violation of conscience from the employer to the employee. If the mandate says the coverage must be offered, but can be declined by the employee (like uninsured motorist coverage), then it would be ok.

While I agree with the essay in large part,I think the problem is treating contraception as a health care issue to begin with. As others pointed out, contraception is not “health care”, but a lifestyle choice (eg, spacing of children, etc.). It is not much different in principle from body building - a lifestyle choice to want to look like Arnold - and demanding that your gym membership, weightlifting equipment, training sessions, protein powder, testosterone supplements, NO supplements, etc. must be covered for free.

To the extent the pill is prescribed for other other true medical reasons, those besides “I want sex without babies right now”, that is already covered in most cases, and in those situations it is not for contraception.

Posted by mac on Wednesday, Mar 14, 2012 10:23 AM (EDT):

One of the scientific claims made by Dr. Smith is that the use of contraception in preventative health actually leads to an INCREASE in abortion. For many this is a counter-intuitive claim. I should like to see Dr. Smith link to the study(ies) upon which this claim is based.

One of the reasons we Catholics in the trenches are so reticent to engage in the public square on the issue of contraception (and other radioactive issues like same sex marriage) is because the Bishops and their surrogate experts have failed so miserably to marshal the arguments and supporting research together in a way that bears any scrutiny. Our leaders are really good a preaching to the choir; but laughably ineffective at engaging a hostile culture.

When studies are cited, oftimes they are outdated or hosted on sites which any objective person would recognize as highly partisan. Or the link is broken entirely.

I am convinced there are very good arguments to be made for the Catholic vision of family planning. But the Bishops need to do their homework - engage with the social sciences - and help the laity to do theirs. Please, please - if the science is in our favor, then make it available in a way that shows integrity and permanence and which will resonate beyond the walls of the Churches ..

Posted by Mark on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 11:25 PM (EDT):

Savvy: “The only person claiming that the church wants a hypothetical ban on contraception is you”. From Janet Smith in this very article you are posting on: “….but Catholics do argue that using contraception is something no one should do”. Get real.

Troll? Inveterate heretic? Please Coast Ranger. Can there truly be no dissent among Catholics without the most zealous calling those who have opposing views from theirs a heretic? Are comment boards just supposed to be full of “right on, sister!” posts? What’s the point of that?

Look people, I’m a Catholic who more often lately has had to defend the institution of the Catholic church against its conduct and its views. I’m sure many of you have as well. On the shameless conduct of the Vatican in the countless child sexual abuse scandals, there is no coherent response. In matters of contraceptives neither my wife and I or the vast majority of the other Catholics I know follow the church on this matter. Yet we continue to participate in mass and school events because we admire almost all of its traditions and teachings. The main problem of the church, I think, is the pious that would alienate and drive cafeteria Catholics like us away rather than accept that there’s a huge problem and talk about it. This is why in North America, church attendance is down, churches are closing, parishes are consolidating, and who knows how much of our collection is going to pay hush-money to the families of children abused by priests. At the risk of coming across as racist, our new pastor (6th or 7th new one in the past 12 years after having the same outstanding pastor for the previous 25 years) is from Central Africa, and the parishioners seem to agree that we can barely understand his english. If the church prefers that those who disagree on contraception leave, they will find their numbers dramatically diminished even further.

It may not seem like it, but I’d rather see the church adapt than fade away. To this end, the point I am trying to make in all my posts are that:

(i) Portraying the church as advocates of women’s health to promote its stance against birth control is a dishonest. Oral contraception may well be proven to be as dangerous to women as it the church now claims it is, but this argument ends when it comes to other forms of contraception. If even Catholics widely ignore it, what moral ground does it have? Savvy claims that non-Catholics have never even heard of NFP. This is utter crap, it’s a well-known among other faiths what NFP is, and worse, they regard it as a joke since only 3% of Catholics practice it. The Guttmacher study methodology leaves room for interpretation of the results, but it’s pretty clear that only a few percent of Catholic families use NFP, and a large percent use artificial birth control. Deniers, have your say.

(ii) Mindlessly regurgitating church doctrine isn’t rational discussion. The attitude that what was true on Tuesday must be true on Friday and only the Pope knows what’s true is the problem. Maybe it’s just Pope Benedict I have the problem with, I don’t know, this never was a problem for me 10 years ago. This puts us in the same league as the evangelical literalists, who deny evolution, claim the earth is only a few thousand years old, and are viewed by the rest of the planet as right lunatics. Quoting church dogma to non-Catholics isn’t going to win any converts. Call it moral relativism if you like, the fact is that the Vatican position will only change if pressured to do so. Blind trust in the hierarchy has led to the progression of mild priest-altar boy jokes decades ago to a full blown moral decay at the top levels of the church.

Posted by savvy on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 7:02 PM (EDT):

RVM,

There are people who take issue with dictating private health care options. Rationing healthcare to save money is backdoor socialism. The next thing you know health insurance will have to cover euthanasia, because grandma is too old and costly too keep around or surgical abortion because it’s cheaper than childbirth.

This all has an impact on religious freedom. This mandate threatens those who won’t comply with jail, fines, and closures.

It was Obama who told the Bishops there would be conscience exemptions and then lied.

Posted by Paul on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 6:48 PM (EDT):

On the notion that the Catholic Church is NOT being singled out for attack by the Obama administration, consider this from The Anchoress’s blog (http://bit.ly/zt5Moo):

“Meanwhile, Sr. Mary Ann Walsh notes:

‘The Amish are exempt from the entire health care reform law. So are members of Medi-Share, a program of Christian Care Ministry. Yet, when the Catholic Church asks for a religious exemption from just one regulation issued under the law – the mandate that all employers, including religious institutions, must pay for sterilization and contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs – the Administration balks.’

They’re doing more than balking, they’re trying to win an election based on their lies. But, as Dr. King said, “a lie doesn’t last…” And it’s a stinking thing to build anything upon.”

Posted by savvy on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 6:38 PM (EDT):

Mark,

Your basically saying, that the church cannot teach anything right, because it has members who have done bad things. Oh. Please. 2,000 years of Christianity has proven that we are all sinners in need of redemption.

Posted by savvy on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 6:33 PM (EDT):

Mark,

The only person dancing around this is you. Infertility is caused due to reasons beyond a persons control. This is different from doing something on purpose to suppress fertility and the natural course of self-giving love.

This is a disembodied separation of the body from the person.

Why can’t you see the difference?

The only person claiming that the church wants a hypothetical ban on contraception is you.

It does not want to be forced to sponsor or subsidize.

Posted by Coast Ranger on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 6:11 PM (EDT):

If Mark is a Catholic (and not just a troll) he is a inveterate heretic. I would not encourage anyone to engage with him further.

Posted by RVM on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 6:03 PM (EDT):

TO: Ismael Hernandez

——I think the point is that the government is forcing ALL NON-PROFITS to pay this health care tax. No religion, no Church is being singled out. As for your notion that this is something other than a simple tax, because it tells people what they must include in health benefits you are at least partly correct. However this is hardly the first time government has acted to define the price of labor. There have been federal and state minimum wages laws in effect for decades.——The Bishops who played such a significant role in developing the Affordable Health Care Act are just being cry babies.

Posted by Mark on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 5:25 PM (EDT):

Coast Ranger: Respect his right to believe things, not the belief.

Posted by Mark on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 5:08 PM (EDT):

Kevin: How about a thought experiment? Let’s pretend that Jesus was asked to comment on the following scenarios:
1 – a gay man is fired from his job as a Catholic school teacher and his other job at a Catholic church because he legally married another man.
2 – the hierarchy of the Catholic church allows a known child-molesting priest to evade prosecution and transfers him to another church where he repeats the abuse.
Actually, except for the asking Jesus part, the scenarios are factual. What do you think he would choose? I believe Jesus would say both are immoral. The Vatican endorses both as morally acceptable. Even the most pious Catholics don’t agree with (2), shall we simply accept that they have the moral authority to tell Catholics what is right and wrong in their hearts?
What about married couples who aren’t able to conceive? What about them? Is there some issue that they’re creating for the Church or themselves that I’m unaware of?
Yeah, I think it creates a problem for the church since these couples are having sex without the possibility of procreation, yet the church endorses it. It refutes the church dogma that sex for procreation and enjoyment are inseparable. Sure, the Vatican dances around issues like these with some doctrine about being open to the possibility of life, blah, blah, fertility cycles, blah, blah, natural law. And Catholics routinely ignore it, because they see the glaring contradiction.
The rest of your post goes on at some length about cancer risk and possible links to oral contraceptives. The fact is you may be proven right about this, who knows? Is it because the magisterium prophesized this at the time of Humanae Vitae? Why weren’t they specific about it then? The problem here, as I addressed in my reply to Savvy, is that none of this applies to other artificial contraceptives like condoms, surgical sterilization, or barrier methods. Disguising the Vatican- sanctioned goal of outlawing contraception in any form as a crusade for women’s health is a shell game, and a losing strategy. The general public won’t buy it, even most Catholics don’t buy it.
I’ll ignore the analogy that since you don’t need to be a meteorologist to determine that the weather is fine, you don’t need medical or research credentials to determine a scientific link between oral contraception and breast cancer. Pretty weak Kev. Like I said earlier, it may turn out to be true. But it won’t be determined by “simple deduction”.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see a study that compares the breast cancer rates between Catholic and non-Catholic women? If the incidence was comparable, (which I do not doubt) I would conclude that this suggests that their use of oral contraceptives is the same. Since you claim that only a small minority of Catholic women use them, I’d wager that you would conclude that some other culprit is to blame.

Posted by cowalker on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 5:01 PM (EDT):

If American women took seriously studies that show a relationship between a relatively higher risk of breast cancer and lifestyle choices, we would not have a problem with American women being obese and getting too little exercise. If Americans put safety ahead of independence, we would not have a society where we all depend on automobiles for transportation, and we all have an approximate 1 in 16 chance of being in an automobile accident every year.

It’s not reasonable to expect Americans to single out this particular risk factor for a particular disease and focus on it above all other factors in their lives. It’s not going to happen.

Posted by savvy on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 4:57 PM (EDT):

Mark,

It could be that people are not offered any other options besides artificial contraception. Priests have not preached on this subject for years, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Respecting your body is not outdated or divisive.

The turn around will have to start with Catholics first. Don’t worry about non-Catholics.

As of the cigarette analogy, non-catholics have not even heard of NFP or Naprotechnology for the most part. Those who have can’t help, but agree that it’s healthier.

Posted by Coast Ranger on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 3:45 PM (EDT):

Because of the wonderful turnaround in episcopal leadership in the Catholic Church in the United States, we could also see a complete turnaround in the use of contraception among lay Catholics. There was a conspiracy of silence on Humanae Vitae for two generations. That time is over.

My own parish is filled with younger families that already have three or more children. Priests are beginning to preach about the Church’s harder teachings and NFP teachers are becoming welcome.

Yeah, there are those Catholic’s who show up at mass twice a year, but I’m not sure why their opinions on contraception will count.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 3:39 PM (EDT):

Mark said,

Please spare me the Vatican doctrine on how contraception, fertility, and the very nature of sex. ... I’m saying that it’s narrow-minded, outdated and divisive. Otherwise why is contraception widely accepted by a huge percentage (I won’t even claim majority although I think it is) of Catholics who otherwise love and respect the church?

How is it that the Church’s reasoning regarding contraception, fertility and the nature of sex is now invalid? Have scientific discoveries obviated its understanding of those matters? Or are you saying that a thing that was true on Tuesday cannot be true on Friday? Are contraception, fertility and the nature of sex now actually different than they once were? Or has only the popular view of them changed in ways that the Church foresaw if we adopted certain attitudes and practices? In other words, does what we see today more confirm or more contradict what Pope Paul VI predicted in Humanae Vitae?

Posted by Coast Ranger on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 3:06 PM (EDT):

Very funny, Mark: to Savvy you write, “I ... understand and respect that you accept” Church doctrine. “I’m saying that it’s narrow-minded, outdated and divisive.”

That’s respect? I’d hate to here your disrespect!

Posted by Markey Mark on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 2:53 PM (EDT):

In a July 29th 2005 press release, the World Health Organization declared that combined estrogen-progestogen Oral Contraceptives are carcinogenic to humans. Specifically, they said that “Use of OC’s increases risk of breast, cervix, and liver cancer.” The data was presented by a working group of 21 scientists from 8 countries convened by the cancer research agency of the WHO, the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Companies that make birth control pills also have admitted a link between the drug and breast cancer. More recently, the journal of the Mayo Clinic (Mayo Clinic Proceedings) published an article entitled “Oral Contraceptive Use as a Risk Factor for Pre-menopausal Breast Cancer: A Meta-analysis.” It revealed that 21 of 23 studies that followed women who took the pill prior to having their first child showed an increased risk of breast cancer. The increase was especially steep among younger women.

factsheet quote: “Some studies have shown an increased risk of breast cancer in women taking oral contraceptives” and “Oral contraceptives have been shown to increase the risk of cervical cancer” and “A 1996 analysis of worldwide epidemiologic data conducted by the Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breast Cancer found that women who were current or recent users of birth control pills had an elevated risk of developing breast cancer. The risk was highest for women who started using OCs as teenagers. “

Posted by Mark on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 2:51 PM (EDT):

Savvy: You claim that “the actual percentage is 60.7%”. Of what? Not sure what you are referring to here - is this the % of Catholic women who use artificial birth control? Regardless, the Guttmacher study suggests that Catholic women share much the same views as all other women on birth control. I agree that the Guttmacher study’s methodology (which it doesn’t attempt to hide) included only women trying to avoid pregnancy. So what? Make any reasonable assumption you want. Tell me what you think is the actual percentage of Catholics who use birth control?

No arguments here that NFP can be 98% effective, I believe it. I also agree that it is much healthier than the pill. The point is that only a small minority of Catholics practice it. The study shows that only 2% of women and 3% of Catholics use it. Do you really feel the study is that flawed? Doesn’t it seem odd to you that your church isn’t packed with 8-10 child families when the number of couples using NFP is vanishingly small?
Note: when presenting any contrary data in the future, I suggest you cite more robust sources than “The James J. Heaney Institute for the Inquiry into Natural Philosophy and Science-y Things”. No, I’m not making this up.

Please spare me the Vatican doctrine on how contraception, fertility, and the very nature of sex. Of course I am aware of it, I was raised and educated Catholic and still attend church. I also understand and respect that you accept it. I’m saying that it’s narrow-minded, outdated and divisive. Otherwise why is contraception widely accepted by a huge percentage (I won’t even claim majority although I think it is) of Catholics who otherwise love and respect the church?

My point is that even if Catholics can get non-Catholics on the same side of the health issue, as Janet Smith advocates, the strength of their argument disappears when you replace “the pill” with condoms or a surgical option like a vasectomy. Then it becomes the same tired Vatican dogma that even most Catholics reject, as evidenced by the Guttmacher study, common sense, and simple honest surveys of any Catholic congregation.

“So it’s fair to ask why should the anti-smoking league fund cigarettes?” Really dude? This is the most strained and inapt analogy I can think of. Catholics stand for and represent many admirable and worthy ideals, even to the secular community. If you could sum up the entire teaching of the Catholic church in one statement, would it be “don’t use condoms”? The anti-smoking league exists for only one reason. Even smokers agree that smoking is bad for their health, do any non-Catholics view condoms that way?

Posted by Ismael Hernandez on Tuesday, Mar 13, 2012 11:30 AM (EDT):

I disagree with the tax formulation. In fact, that is the Obama Administration’s position, that it is just a tax. But it is more than that, it is forcing a private agent to purchase a given “benefit.” Secondly, within that law there is an unfunded mandate that forces third parties (individuals and entities) to pay and also tells us what constitutes insurance. Then government forces tax-exempt religious non-profits to pay for a given “benefit.” It is not money that goes directly to government in the form of a tax but money a private religious entity is forced to pay to a third party, an insurance company. Thus, the scope of the issue goes beyond a mere issue of taxation.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 11:22 PM (EDT):

Mark said,

He was fired from both jobs when a local church official learned he was gay.

Actually, I believe it was publicly entering into a relationship that contradicted Church teaching that got him fired, not merely experiencing same-sex attractions, which is not in itself a sin according to the Church.

It underscores the problem of allowing religious institutions to discriminate in ways that secular institutions cannot under the guise of “religious liberty”.

In other words, the “ministerial exception” that the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed. I suppose it’s a principle that could be abused (it wasn’t in this case), but I think that only anti-religious extremists would agree that the government should be able to tell religions how to operate and whom can be in positions of leadership.

What about married couples who aren’t able to conceive?

What about them? Is there some issue that they’re creating for the Church or themselves that I’m unaware of?

Oral contraceptives have been proven to reduce rates of endometrial and ovarian cancer by 50% or more.

Since there are about 3 1/2 times as many new cases of breast cancer yearly as there are of those two cancers combined, and the increase in breast cancer rates over the past few decades is far more than 50%, oral contraceptives would have to be an almost negligible risk factor for breast cancer for that risk to be outweighed by their positive effects on other cancers.

Do you believe there’s a vast conspiracy in the medical community to give women breast cancer?

One of the more convincing studies showing oral contraceptives to be a risk factor - linked to by myself and one other commenter above - is fairly recent (published 2 1/2 years ago), so it may not have had enough time (or torque) to filter through the medical community, especially given the natural resistance to the idea of recommending against a measure that so many women consider just as much a right as having air to breath.

There are many possible causes to the increase in breast cancer, are you a physician or researcher, or in any way qualified to suggest that birth control pills are the culprit?

No. Neither am I a meteorologist. But that doesn’t mean I cannot agree that the weather is fine today, or that it looks as if it may rain. But my fingering of oral contraceptives as a likely culprit is not so much exceeding my expertise as it is applying a simple deduction. Obviously, some factor or factors other than age or family history must be behind the dramatic increase in breast cancer over the past few decades. The question is, what is it/are they? A study that finds something like oral contraceptives to be significant risk factor could hold the answer to that question. A study that finds that oral contraceptives are not a significant risk factor, but that doesn’t find anything else to be a stronger risk factor, cannot be an answer to that question. I simply haven’t seen any studies that find something to be a greater risk for breast cancer than oral contraceptives.

Posted by savvy on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 9:38 PM (EDT):

Mark,

NFP when used correctly is 98% effective, according to the WHO and the Chinese govt. accepts it as part of compulsory family planning.

Also, the actual percentage is 60.7%. Programmers at James Heneany Institute used a computer for a weak for pour over the stats.

“I just don’t agree with the prohibition of contraception in marriage. “

Sex by it’s very nature is unitive and pro-creative. This is common sense. We are bodily persons. It’s through our bodies that we interact with the world around us.

Contraceptive sex sends out the message, that “i am giving all of myself to you, except my fertility.” “This is a part me that I do not want to share with you or want to control”

Artificial contraception works to suppress fertility, NFP works with the the human body.

“What about married couples who aren’t able to conceive? “

They are still entitled to conjugal rights, because this is through no fault of theirs

This is different from trying to frustrate the means of an act and its meaning on purpose.

In the case of homosexual sex, there is no sexual difference. So complimentary sexual systems do not come together to become one flesh. It misses both the unitive and procreative dimension.

We are all sinners. The key is repentance whether one is homosexual or not.

There’s a distinction made between orientation and behaviour. A chaste gay would not have been fired.

We have an embodied religion. Our bodies are not external to our being. They are not foreign places we occupy.

The secular world does not make too much of the body, it makes too little of it.

This has an impact on sexual ethics and how we view human beings.

NFP is still a lot healthier than artificial birth control too. Naprotechnology also treats the very things the pill does BTW.

So it’s fair to ask why should the anti-smoking league fund cigarettes?

Posted by Mark on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 6:04 PM (EDT):

@Kevin – yes I thought the article about the Catholic school was on-topic too. Here’s a committed gay couple, together 20 years, one of whom worked for both a Catholic school and church. He was fired from both jobs when a local church official learned he was gay. It was widely know that they were gay, and despite an email campaign from students and parents, he was fired anyways. It underscores the problem of allowing religious institutions to discriminate in ways that secular institutions cannot under the guise of “religious liberty”. Yet these institutions have no problem with serial adulterers like Gingrich who calls himself Catholic and preaches family values. Somehow he’s more acceptable than a gay couple in a 20 year relationship? Yet the church routinely transferred known pedophiles rather than defrocking them.
I understand the church doctrine on sex and marriage, I just don’t agree with the prohibition of contraception in marriage. What about married couples who aren’t able to conceive? I know that the Vatican says to dance around situations like this, but is that what Jesus would say? I doubt it.
To your other post regarding the Guttmacher survey (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/Religion-and-Contraceptive-Use.pdf ) the point is that Catholic women’s views on contraceptive are much the same as those of other religions, despite being the only ones whose church prohibits it. It’s also interesting to observe that among woman aged 20-24 who hadn’t been married yet, Catholics lead them all in admitting to have had sex (89%). I’m sure you will gladly define these women as “non-practicing” but the majority attends church at least monthly (60%). Granted that these were Catholic women who are currently trying to avoid pregnancy, so they may not be the majority if you assume that most Catholic women are trying to get pregnant, which defies belief. Even among married Catholic women, only 3% report using NFP. Look around your church this week – if only 3% are using NFP and they pews aren’t packed with huge families, how do you think they are limiting the size of their families?
Reduction in other types of cancer (from the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada):
Oral contraceptives have been proven to reduce rates of endometrial and ovarian cancer by 50% or more. This benefit increases with duration of use and persists for up to 20 years after oral contraceptives are stopped.
Do you believe there’s a vast conspiracy in the medical community to give women breast cancer? Are they simply wrong? I doubt it. There are many possible causes to the increase in breast cancer, are you a physician or researcher, or in any way qualified to suggest that birth control pills are the culprit?

Posted by Doug on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 5:23 PM (EDT):

Janet Smith writes:
“If we [Catholics] did so, it would be because natural-law arguments demonstrate that blood transfusions are not against objective morality. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t argue that they are; rather, they oppose blood transfusions because of an idiosyncratic interpretation of Scripture.”

The first statement may be true or not; I’m not a philosopher. I do know that our goal is to be in line with Jehovah’s morality only.
“Idiosyncratic” is a word that may apply elsewhere, but not [to us] where plain scripture is involved:
“Saving that flesh with blood you shall not eat. For I will require the blood of your lives at the hand of every beast, and at the hand of man, at the hand of every man, and of his brother, will I require the life of man.” Gen 9:4,5; to Noah, the father of us all.
“And whatsoever man [there be] of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh [is] in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it [is] the blood [that] maketh an atonement for the soul.” Lev 17:10,11 Repeated in the Law Covenant

So far, no mention of transfusions or venous intake* of blood. Note, though that Jehovah the Creator of life and blood says “the life of the flesh [is] in the blood”. He might as well have picked the heart, the skin, or any other organ that is essential to the life of the organism. He picked blood, and that’s that. Therefore a Christian should think carefully before doing anything with blood- his own or someone else’s.
*“venous intake” Isn’t that how some patients are fed?

Aside from the precedent of the command to Noah- the father of us all- a Christian has more immediate information to consider:
“But that we write unto them, that they refrain themselves from the pollutions of idols and from fornication and from things strangled and from blood ... That you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication: from which things keeping yourselves, you shall do well.” Acts 15:20,29
Notice, please, four separate things from which Christians MUST abstain: Idolatry and fornication (hardly arguable here, we hope!), “things strangled”, and, simply, “from blood”. (Cf. Acts 21:25)
“Things strangled” refers to what we might call ‘roadkill’- animals that died without having the blood drained before eating. We see an example of this at 1 Sam 14:32 ff. David even worried about a ‘symbolic’ sin being imputed to him: 2Sa 23:17
So much for not “eating blood”, the part that Catholics understand. (Luther opined that this applied also to the German delicacy blood sausage.) But, still before the day of transfusions, the elders in Jerusalem included “blood”; no mention of how it was administered or given. For us, the discussion ends here. In fact, we can stop at the plain language: Abstain from blood.

Posted by Dennis on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 5:00 PM (EDT):

to RVM: Is the penalty for noncompliance a fine or a tax? From listening to different administration representatives, I’m unsure.

Posted by Doug on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 4:49 PM (EDT):

Sally writes, on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 1:31 PM (EST):
“Out of curiosity, do Jehovah’s Witnesses run their own hospitals?”
No. We have no hospitals, orphanages, food banks or other entities sometimes associated with other churches. As part of the societies in which we live we may choose to support charities, although we shy away from those with ties to other religions.
The decision to accept or refuse blood- or indeed any particular medical treatment- is the individual’s, outside any religious framework. We do have volunteer ministers who are trained to deal with hospitals and doctors who want to give us transfusions with every good intent. They sincerely believe in blood as a legitimate medical tool, and many times they are unaware of non-blood alternative treatments for serious procedures like hip replacement. (My own wife had a radical hysterectomy with no blood prepared or used, and came out just fine.)

@Ann: I, too, am an NFP-only provider, and I agree with you poing about not ignoring facts that seem detrimental to one’s argument. However, as you know, we can’t practice “evidence-based medicine” based on only one or two studies, and we need to be especially wary of studies funded by the pharma companies that stand to gain from positive results. While the study you cited may cast a more favorable light on hormonal contraceptives, I would counter with the recent study out of Fred Hutchison Cancer Research (Seattle) that found a substantial increase in triple-negative breast cancer among women who used HC prior to first pregnancy. http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/18/4/1157.full
Additionally, the results of the Women’s Health Initiative were so compelling that many women quit using HRT cold turkey, often with the advice of their physician. And while HRT is a different dose from OCPs, the components are the same—something I think should give all of us pause.—
I actually think that the most effective argument against the coverage of hormonal contraception for birth control is this: it doesn’t actually “treat” disease, but rather induces a diseased state where normal physiology occurs. To my knowledge, there isn’t a single instance anywhere else in the practice of medicine where this is true. As for the use of HC to treat actual disease, I think this is an area that needs more study and more scrutiny. Anymore, HC is prescribed practically like a vitamin to “treat” everything from acne to depression to endometriosis, but nowhere is it considered first-line or more effective than other modalities currently available.

Posted by maggie on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 12:53 PM (EDT):

Considering that about 90% of health insurances cover contraception and that Title 10 has made it available like candy to Medicaid recipients how can this not be seen as an attack on religious liberty? For decades Catholic institutions have not covered this and there hasn’t been any problem. People who wanted contraception could obtain it at no cost from Planned Parenthood or at minimal costs from pharmacies via doctor scripts. My question is why is it being swept under the rug the damage that these contraceptives have done to women physically, emotionally, and culturally? The increase in contraception has only lead to an increase in abortions, sexually transmitted diseases, breast cancer, degradation and depression. There are more divorces among couples that contracept than not. Women have become objectified and treated as things to be used to satisfy men’s sexual desires and not as people worthy of respect or care. There is so much more data proving that contraceptives and sterilizations do more harm than good as compared to the archaic information that Planned Parenthood keeps pulling out.

Posted by Coast Ranger on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 12:52 PM (EDT):

Mark’s ‘no problem with contraception’ and ‘no problem with gay marriage’ are the same thing. His long post on why the various argument against the HHS mandate are no good is just an invitation to give up and do nothing—which means obey Obama.

Posted by liseux on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 12:48 PM (EDT):

It doesn’t matter if some Catholic women or even the majority of Catholic women use contraception. Should we stop enforcing speeding laws just because most people speed.

For the sake of religious freedom, this mandate must be fought. If it takes bishops to be imprisoned or even give their lives, that’s what their little red hats mean- martyr material.

I am willing to fight with them AND to train my children to stand up for our religious freedom.

Dead bodies float downstream witht the culture. We need Catholics with backbone to come alive and realize what is at stake here.

I would argue that the test case was actually way back at the beginning of the twentieth century when previously legal products (cocaine, morphine, marijuana, etc.) were made illegal except under conditions controlled by the government. Shortly after that, of course, was the Great Experiment of Prohibition, when American society was going to be perfected by abolishing alcohol.

The campaign against tobacco has been much more successful because it started with social pressure, and only after even most smokers were convinced it was a bad habit did the taxes soar and limitations were imposed on where one could smoke. I keep hoping we have leared something from past failures, like Prohibition.

Posted by cowalker on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 11:33 AM (EDT):

If the bishops argued that church-affiliated institutions shouldn’t be required to provide insurance coverage of contraceptives due to health risks of taking hormones, how would they argue against providing coverage for diaphragms or cervical caps? And how would they address the fact that large-scale studies have demonstrated a balance of risks and benefits provided by taking birth-control pills? There are risks and benefits to traveling by automobile too, but Americans aren’t about to abandon driving no matter how much environmentalists rail against it.

As for the social aspects, American families now absolutely depend on being able to control fertility to plan their lives. As with our resistance to any limitations on our right to drive, Americans choose freedom over risk, and even over demonstrable damage, such as the health problems caused by auto emissions.

I think the bishops have made the best case they could, and they will probably get some further concession from the administration. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were shortly before the election.

Posted by Kevin Rahe on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 11:03 AM (EDT):

Mark said,

More charming consequences of the church’s religious liberty [re gay man fired from Catholic church for “marrying” another man]

At first I was going to suggest that this was off-topic, but then I realized it really is related, if not quite in the way you had presumed. While I don’t want to see this discussion go off on a tangent, I felt this needed to be answered.

The Catholic Church’s answer to artificial contraceptives, at least for the unmarried, is of course abstinence. When we talk to our children about sex, we tell them that it’s not just for pleasure, and we emphasize its dual purposes - that it is for procreation as well as the mutual satisfaction of spouses - and suggest that because those purposes cannot be completely separated, sex belongs in marriage. But how does a same-sex couple make this case to any children they may adopt or bring from another relationship? Their very situation flies in the face of the reasoning that sex belongs in marriage, which is the basis for abstaining outside of marriage.

Even the majority of Catholics have a problem with the church’s position on contraception, as it is widely ignored.

Actually, only about 2/3 of Catholic women of childbearing age who are currently trying to avoid pregnancy are using artificial contraceptives. That’s very likely a minority of all Catholic women in that age range. And I have not heard of single survey that finds majority support for artificial contraception among practicing Catholics.

There is broad consensus that while it slightly increases the risk of cervical cancer and breast cancer, it significantly reduces the risk of other cancers, and the benefits outweigh the risks.

From 1970 until the mid-1990s, incidences of breast cancer increased 171%. The 29% increase in the female population and 4 year increase in women’s life expectancy in that time would explain a 50% increase in breast cancer, but not 171%. Of the studies that might hold the answer to the question of what is causing all this additional breast cancer, artificial contraceptives are at the top of the list of risk factors. I haven’t seen any statistics that suggest other cancers have decreased proportionally to breast cancer’s increase in that time.

opposition to universal health care is a betrayal of the Catholic faith

One can be opposed to the PPACA and all federal involvement in the delivery of health care, and still be in favor of everyone getting the health care they need. There is nothing in Catholic teaching that requires needs of individuals to be met by a huge bureaucracy.

Posted by Paul on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 9:40 AM (EDT):

I agree that religious liberty and the First Amendment free exercise clause do not constitute absolute rights that trump all others, but they are still the heart of the issue. Contraceptives, unlike blood transfusions, do not (as contraceptives) prevent or treat a disease and do not involve the state’s duty to protect children from child neglect (of health care). In this case, many organizations (McDonalds, unions) are exempted but religious organizations have been singled out for having crammed down their throats a policy that violates their conscience and that requires their direct cooperation in what they regard as evil. It is gratuitous because the country is awash with contraceptives that are inexpensive and that no-one is seeking to ban. This is NOT a tax or a law, but a regulation that forces employers to subsidize the sexual activities of their employees. It is most analogous to the 2nd century BC tyrant Antiochus IV Epiphanes who forced Jews to eat pork just because it violated their conscience (see Michael Stokes Paulsen’s post at Public Discourse (http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/02/4777).

It is also not necessary to universal health coverage, which other advanced countries take for granted while expecting people to pay for their own contraceptives.

Obama’s “accommodation” seems no less a violation of the First Amendment since, to the extent that it is anything but an accounting gimmick, it provides for preferential treatment of religious organizations at the expense of lay ones.

At the same time, it is true that it is absolutely necessary to take on the ‘sexual revolution’ and all its disastrous social effects for women, children, and men along with its technological foundation, contraception and its backup abortion. The contraception part, which enables all the rest, is a fight for ‘the culture’ (which is not as homogeneous as Janet Smith implies) that the Church ducked for decades. That Obama can get away with the Big Lie that the issue is about women’s health and not religious liberty, and that Sandra Fluke can become a ‘courageous’ person for cleaning that uncommitted sex is a good for women and colleges and employers should be made to facilitate sexual immorality, is a sign of how much work we have to do.

Posted by Jerry on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 9:01 AM (EDT):

Jehovah’s Witnesses use only hospitals who respect our wishes. Doctors say that our stand has made the medical field better by improving techniques to save blood during operations. We all benefit from this.

Posted by Joe Emerson on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 1:44 AM (EDT):

The Watchtower Society over JWs now lets them take all the major blood fractions including hemoglobin (red blood cells) except for the encasing membranes; whole blood is not permitted but hospitals rarely use it due to complications. Watchtower also permits use of Hemopure, a synthetic blood from cows’ blood. To keep from alienating diehards among JWs Watchtower does relatively little to inform JWs or the public but these are the facts. If you act like a person with a bleeding imperilled JW relative and call Watchtower then you can get this confirmed:718 560-5000.

Posted by RVM on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 1:42 AM (EDT):

Posted by Dennis on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 11:22 AM (EST):

“The same religious religious conscience that protects individual Quakers from direct participation in America’s wars should protect Catholic institutions from direct participation in America’s wars on the unborn.”

That’s exactly my point Dennis, Religious Liberty might get one out of prescribing contraceptives. But nothing can get one out of paying taxes.

Posted by Jeff on Monday, Mar 12, 2012 12:51 AM (EDT):

In addition to all the beautifully valid moral reasons to oppose contraception that devout Catholics espouse, why not add even more hard science to the debate? For years, people have been ignoring the real dangers of the synthetic hormones that comprise the “pill”. These hormones do not break down and linger. They are contaminating our water supplies at an alarming rate. Here is a pull quote from an article in Scientific American from 2009:

“One of the common culprits is estrogen, much of which is inadvertently released into sewers through the urine of women taking birth control. Studies have shown that estrogen can wreak reproductive havoc on some fish, which spawn infertile offspring sporting a mixture of male and female parts. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that human breast cancer cells grew twice as fast when exposed to estrogen taken from catfish caught near untreated sewage overflows.”

Here is a proposal for ridding our water supply of dangerous estrogen levels. Who is going to pay for this? Is this not a “health care” issue that should be of more immediate concern to those who are supposedly in support of women’s health?

Even those with difficulty comprehending the moral objections should want to take another look at their position when confronted with the scientifically verifiable clear and present danger to all of us. The media has kept a lid on this for years. Is this not a good opportunity to expose more people to this truth?

And here is the study that convinced Dr. Louise Brinton that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer by about 40%, which also shows that for the more dangerous type of breast cancer (triple-negative), starting oral contraceptive use before age 18 or having quit using oral contraceptives in the last 1-5 years are even bigger risk factors than age or a family history of the disease:http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/18/4/1157.full

Posted by Maria on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 11:27 PM (EDT):

Karen Roberts,
You make excellent points regarding changing the public image of smoking. In addition, the crucial thing that changed the tobacco industry was litigation. We must begin suing pharmaceutical companies and doctors for all the damage contraception has caused. Huge class action suits change things.

Posted by savvy on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 11:22 PM (EDT):

Mark,

Threatening somebody with fines, jail time, and closures if they refuse to violate their conscience is an attack on religious freedom.

This is not an accessibility issue, since contraceptives are available for free at Planned Parenthood and for cheap at drug stores.

Social justice is also not socialism. Rationing health care to save money is not social justice. The little sisters of the poor, asked,

“If the federal government succeeds in enforcing this rule, what is to stop it from rationing health care to seniors or including euthanizing procedures on the list of required ‘preventive services’ as a way of eliminating the costs associated with caring for our aging population?” they asked.

“Would health care providers like the Little Sisters of the Poor then be forced to cooperate in such practices?”

The principle of subsidiarity holds that government should be as local as possible. Charity is voluntary and not by govt. fiat.

Too many Catholics have confused social justice with socialism.

Posted by Philip Viverito on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 11:15 PM (EDT):

The article was very good. I think it odd that we do not see when the attack on all of our liberties began long before this issue which is extremely important. The real test was made and succeeded in the 1990’s when evil big tobacco was attacked. I do not mean to say we should smoke but the issue wasn’t smoking it was made into a health issue.

In the 1970’s about 50% of Americans smoked. today it is about 20 to 25%. Again the issue was not smoking it was to social engineer. This attack on a legal product was the test case. If it worked it then more engineering could be imposed. When smoking was assigned to the issue of health the way was paved for manipulating the public. We have seen a legal product taxed to the limit. Companies that produced the product fined. Freedom of speech banned (advertising not allowed to these companies) and people ostracized who continued to used and sold legal tobacco products. Imagine completely changing the habit of 50 % of any national population? If that is not social engineering what is?

Today the test proof is being used again to social engineer and while doing so it also once more ignores our basic liberties in the cause of supposed health. More is at stake than our health it is our mortal souls and our liberty to choose right from wrong.

Finally I am not defending smoking. I am hopefully pointing out how social engineering works and how it is now being reimposed. By carefully finding an issue (health in this case and the former) the government once more directs the population to choose to do a wrong thing through carefully planned campaigns. To defend an issue that is pointed out to be unpopular by secular authority those who oppose the campaign are demonized.

Posted by Greg on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 10:55 PM (EDT):

Why do they call contraceptives as health issue? Cancer treatment, vitamins, screenings these are health issues which people cannot afford and for some reason they are not important?!
We, as The Church, fail to teach Catholics and the world what love, and family is. We fail to teach we are created in image of God. We fail to teach what fatherhood, motherhood, and marriage are. We fail despite Holy Spirit giving us the wisdom through beloved John Paul the Great. So if we fail to teach, and we are body of Christ, and the body of Christ cannot fail, then I no wonder God allows these things to happen. I wish they never happened, but I am not gultless myself. If we fail to sacrifice our lives for the Trut out of love, we I’ll have to sacrifice them because we will have to make that decision forced by those who hate us. Forgive us, Father, and thank You Father for not chastising us.

Posted by Mike, the servant on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 9:12 PM (EDT):

To Janet Smith and Karen Roberts, kudos and as Jesus would say, “Amen, Amen”. If we deem ourselves followers of Christ, we only have to look at how He handled things. Remember the Caesar’s coin incident? Argue, and I mean “argue” in the logical sense, so that your opponent can see, or at least should see the folly of his position, on his own terms. Then he or she has to refute his or her own argument, or admit to unreasoned stubbornness. Hmmm, unreasoned stubbornness, surely not in our perfect country and our unblemished political system!

Posted by mary on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 9:11 PM (EDT):

I don’t know if I am the only one who sees this problem with contraceptives. Why is it wrong to a modern woman, to eat meat that has added hormones, or wrong to genetically modified food, but ok to consume or inject mega doses of hormones into her own body? Why is popular to her to be “green” and eat healthy natural food, but not to use NFP, which is safe, environmental, as well as moral? Just wonderin’

Posted by Howard Duncan on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 9:01 PM (EDT):

I think pessimism expressed here about popular opinion being largely against religious freedom has not been born out by the last Senate vote. I believe only 3 or 4 votes to win the exemption that we all ask for. Play the game harder (so to speak).

Posted by Defender on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 8:32 PM (EDT):

“Margaret Sanger deviously managed to get contraception something that the respectable medical profession dispensed rather than something that was sold alongside pornography in seedy establishments (where condoms once were sold and where contraceptives belong).”

This article is a tremendous explanation of the fallacies of the arguments comparing the JWs blood transfusion to our Catholic stance on contraception. It, however, shoots itself in the foot with the parenthetical statement “where contraceptives belong” that mixes opinion with fact, that seedy establishments (were) where condoms once were sold.

I agree with Ms. Smith and Cardinal Dolan. The mandate will get struck down by the Courts long before it goes into effect. I count at least five Supreme Court justices voting against it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it is 9-0.

Posted by Simon James on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 8:17 PM (EDT):

Dear Janet,

Thank you for your thoughtful statements.

I ask you to consider that we in the USA are now in a state of emergency with respect to religous freedom. I am not talking about the HHS Mandate, but rather about the mandater. Consider what it will mean if he can make such a direct attack against conscience rights—what Cardinal George is calling a form of theft—and such a direct attack against the ministerial exception (Hosanna-Tabor)—and still get elected to 4 more years. It will be a validation from the election process that these things no longer matter in America. Regardless of what the Supreme Court might say for the time being, if we come to that pass, we will no longer be the same country.

If you put our immediate strategy within the context of rebuking the attacker, I believe you will conclude that engaging people on the issue of contraception is not only not timely, but will be counterproductive. The ordinary “undecided” or at least “swayable” voter is anything but undecided or swayable when it comes to contraception. It is perceived as a precious personal liberty, especially by women, and all the logic in the world will get us nowhere.

The issue we have got to stick with for now is religious liberty. Changing hearts and minds on contraception is going to have to wait till next year. It is a long overdue task, but trying to make up for lost time now will be shooting ourselves in the head.

Posted by Algonz on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 7:37 PM (EDT):

Danny Haszard….. You are still spewing hatred after you were Disfellowshipped for conduct ‘unbecoming a Christian’. Plus the fact that you were spurned by a woman who was not interested in your improper advances. Get a Life man. Your hatred is eating you up inside!

Posted by Mark on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 7:08 PM (EDT):

Even as a Catholic who has no moral problem with contraceptive use, I agree that the continued argument that being required to fund employee access to contraception violates religious liberty is losing one. The American public views this more as violating the freedoms of employees working for Catholic institutions than the religious liberties of Catholics. Even the majority of Catholics have a problem with the church’s position on contraception, as it is widely ignored.
However, to double down and “expand the grounds of objections” by marketing this as a health care and social issue is a pretty weak place to argue from. Birth control is widely used for reasons other than preventing pregnancy, so limiting access is contrary to this position. This business about the pill being listed as a Group 1 carcinogen is technically true but otherwise nonsense, the medical community is well aware of the risk. There is broad consensus that while it slightly increases the risk of cervical cancer and breast cancer, it significantly reduces the risk of other cancers, and the benefits outweigh the risks. There is no vast medical conspiracy here. To claim that Pope Paul VI was a visionary who somehow predicted the use of contraception would result in the state of society today isn’t going to win any converts either. Even if the link was demonstrated to be factual, it’s an “I told you so” attitude that won’t play well with other Christians who don’t hold the Pope in as high regard as we do.
The observation that Jews do not argue that eating pork is something no one should do, but Catholics do argue that no one should use contraception should not be celebrated. It suggests a level of self-righteousness and religious bigotry to impose Catholic doctrine on others who don’t share that belief. So does dismissing the religious beliefs of other groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses as “an idiosyncratic interpretation of Scripture” It comes across as rather insulting, whether intended that way or not.
Despite some flaws, I happen to agree with the ACA. The attitude that “people are free to refuse to work for institutions they don’t want to be associated with” is part of the problem, and assumes that jobs are plentiful and that people have the luxury to shop for the ones that offer the best health care plans. Is this the reality for most people? The Conference of Catholic Bishops requires that health care be provided to all Americans. Do you also object to the removal of the ability to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, a key feature of the ACA? You and Rick Santorum may be doing an excellent job explaining the consequences of contraception, but opposition to universal health care is a betrayal of the Catholic faith.

Posted by Howard Duncan on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 6:51 PM (EDT):

The cigarette health argument took decades to have a pronounced effect. Congress became involved. Public opinion changed. Smoking slooooowly became unpopular. We don’t have but a few months to produce some positive results. Don’t give up the long term fight, but contribute to the short term also.

Posted by Howard Duncan on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 6:24 PM (EDT):

I find the argument for only one (mine, mine, mine) approach presented here to be divisive. The cigarette issue was only a health issue with a minor argument over personal space. We have the first amendment to uphold as well. The state law suits all complain of a disregard for the constitution. There is room for attacking with all arguments.

I am not questioning the point, but am looking for a solid list: where can I find a list of “Group 1 carcinogenic contraceptives”? It would be great to be armed with that information and the research as well.

Posted by Mary on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 5:30 PM (EDT):

Excellent - Brava!

Posted by Fr. W. M. Gardner on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 5:11 PM (EDT):

“Margaret Sanger deviously managed to get contraception something that the respectable medical profession dispensed rather than something that was sold alongside pornography in seedy establishments (where condoms once were sold and where contraceptives belong).”

Does this not speak to the demonic nature of advocacy for contraception? It uses deceit to both pervert the medical professsion and to contravene the primary, life-giving purpose of sexual loving.

Satan indeed hates life… hates babies.

Posted by chris c. on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 4:01 PM (EDT):

Excellent article, which makes points I have been attempting to make as well in discussing this issue. The HHS mandates do involve questions of religious freedom but as well they mandate require that a product with serious known side effects, in the case of birth control pills, be made available for free. Point out to people that, as Janet wrote, the most common form of the pill, the Combined Oral Contraceptive(COC) is a GROUP ONE CARCINOGEN, which means it is a proven carcinogen, unlike DDT banned as pesticide for the past 40 years which is only classified as a possible (Group 2b) carcinogen. (World Health Organization/IARC). Additonally it is proven as a significant risk factor in the onset of heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure on other diseases. It is an unhealthy product which cures no disease, but rather the norma, natural, and healthy condition of human fertility.
By all means stress the First Amendment issues in this debate, but also use if as a chance to educate people on the true health implications of the widespread use of contraceptives.

Posted by judith leonard on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 3:59 PM (EDT):

Thank you Dr. Smith! Yes, we need to educate the public on the consequences of contraceptives, abortifacients and how they really work. What mother would give her daughter a Class 1 carcinogen? Is our country really better off since the advent of modern day birth control? It is a sweet lie to think there are no negative consequences. We are being given a very teachable moment, lets make use of it!

Posted by Sally on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 3:31 PM (EDT):

Out of curiosity, do Jehovah’s Witnesses run their own hospitals?

Posted by Donald Nelson on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 3:18 PM (EDT):

The Federal Government’s HHS buck-passing scheme that states that the
insurance companies would ‘pick up the ‘tab’ on the contraceptive-abortofacent costs is equally repugnant in another way. Many insurance
salesmen are also Catholics or evangelical Protestants or Orthodox Jews
who also feel that contraceptive abortofacents are wrong as well.

Posted by Vinny on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 2:56 PM (EDT):

The facts prove without a doubt that God was never behind any of THIS Jehovah’s Witness teachings:

ALL FROM THEIR OWN LITERATURE WITH DATES AND PAGES TO SEE FOR YOURSELVES!!!

We got False End of the World Predictions all over the place, medically disasterous policies - (blood) FORCED on JW’s at risk of extreme shunning.

We got flip flops, blinking lights, wacky science, historical failures, arrogance, judging other religions and people of those religions and LOADS of WT Society embarrassments and humiliations throughout their entire 100+ year history!

God had nothing to do with all that nonsense that was called, “Food from God” by all JW’s even down to this day.

It was WRONG when it first came off the presses!

So why are some today opposed to Jehovah’s Witness and their policies, including blood?

DEAD PEOPLE is why.

RUINED LIVES is why.

FALSE PROPHECIES is why.

An arrogant, controlling Religious Institution is why.

They are WRONG ON BLOOD TODAY (for 68 years now).

They are WRONG ON SHUNNING those that simply walk away from the JW religion today. (nowhere in bible)

They are WRONG 607 BCE and 1914.

They were WRONG ABOUT FORBIDDING Vaccinations, Organ Transplants, Alternative Service and much more.

They were wrong on ALL OF THEIR End of World Predictions in writing. Wrong on marital infidelity rules, rape rules, beards, 1935, Beth Sarim and too many things to bother listing here.

Did ((( GOD ))) make all of these terrible decisions to force on all the JW’s as “food at the proper time”, and then change his mind later on?

Or was is just a bunch of MEN, that make up the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses (sitting up in some Brooklyn office somewhere) making these poor decisions, FORCING them on all JW’s and then afterwards conveniently change their mind?

JW’s are told they cannot take blood transfusions in situations where they might need one (such as through accidents or complications with surgery, pregnancy or child birth etc).

This is very simple. JW’s NEEDLESSLY die for this sorry blood policy today.

From the same organization that has an entire 100 + year history of similar bad and embarrasing policies.

This is why I suggest to anybody thinking of becoming a JW ... to READ READ AND READ UP ON THIS RELIGION FIRST!

The proof will clearly stand out that the JW faith is not what they try to tell people they are!

The facts are Irrefutable.

Vinny

Posted by Joseph Metrick on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 2:20 PM (EDT):

A diversity of beliefs leads to chaos. The US is headed for chaos, the truth cannot be compromised. Diversity is just a smoke screen to enable the government and anti-christian organizations to go about attacking christianity without impunity.

Posted by Julie on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 2:17 PM (EDT):

Thank you for an excellent article, Dr. Smith. I only wish you or someone else provided a follow-up article about effective ways of getting the message across. Pro-contraceptive supporters, especially President Obama, are savvy and know the key is to reach young people where they live. They reach them through YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and any number of Internet pages. Pro-life, pro-women advocates need to match them, especially with videos that follow “3-C’s”: cogent, catchy, and correct. By correct, I mean resisting the urge to take a fact and exaggerate it even a little because the media will always give a pass to the other side and will always sideline or demolish the pro-life side in the arena of public perception. Do we have faithful and passionate Catholics who are qualified to create polished, cannot-be-ignored videos directed at young people? I certainly hope so. They are needed yesterday and in large numbers.

Posted by Dennis on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 1:22 PM (EDT):

The same religious religious conscience that protects individual Quakers from direct participation in America’s wars should protect Catholic institutions from direct participation in America’s wars on the unborn.

Posted by ann on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 12:56 PM (EDT):

“Contraception is bad for women’s health, for relationships and for society”

There are many medical studies that will show few health risks, and some that show benefits from hormonal contraceptive use. For instance, Hannaford et al (BMJ, 2010)did a study comparing mortality among ever users of contraception and never users. Over all,there was a greater death rate in the non-users than in the users. Pill users were more likely to suffer violent deaths. It is true that the WHO labels hormonal contraceptives as Class I carcinogens, but this is true for some, not all cancer.(eg higher cervical and liver cancer rates in users, but lower endometrial anc colon cancer rates in users). I sometimes see people on “our side” picking only the part of data that support our ideology, while ignoring data that refute our views. When we do this, we run that risk of appearing to be liars, and all our credibility will be lost. We must oppose this mandate with complete truth. Using the medical arguement has some weakness. I totally agree that wide spread contraception has done emormous damage to the society. Interesting that the users in the British study were more like to die violent deaths. By the way, I am an NFP only physician.

Posted by Coast Ranger on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 12:24 PM (EDT):

An excellent column that deserves to be widely read. Two things, though.
>Do state governments or does the federal government make Jehovah’s Witness institutions offer its employees blood transfusions, or is this a red herring?
>I’m not sure the statement that “the Founding Fathers took steps to privilege religious practice in certain ways (tax deductions, etc.) is accurate. Income taxes are largely a 20th century phenomenon.

Posted by Karen Roberts on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 12:10 PM (EDT):

I totally agree with Janet Smith’s view in that as Catholics we need to argue our objections to Obama’s contraception mandate more from the health risks than the religious freedom perspective. We already have the template in place as Ms. Smith mentioned the smoking ban proponents’ campaign to restrict cigarette smoking in this country.

How was their campaign ultimately successful? They (anti-smoking advocates) made use of personalized stories of lung cancer victims, showed the effects of smoking on the body, and instigated a decade long anti-smoking campaign funded by the American Lung Cancer Society and other health agencies. In essence they changed society’s perception of smoking. The same can be done with birth control methods and abortion for each has a myriad of health risks behind each of them.

“Religious freedom” has become, as Ms. Smith cites, a subjective term which tends to denote more images of Pilgrims and Declarations of Independence than it does effectively frame the arguments of Catholics to the birth control mandate put forth by the Obama Administration. This is our chance as Catholics to bond with each other and exemplify our faith as we have failed to do, to the degradation of our character and what we stand for as part of the Body of Christ.

Posted by William J Quinn on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 11:36 AM (EDT):

The cost of contraception in both blood and treasure is incalculable. It is the worst plague ever visited upon mankind.
Our 50-million dead here in this country is just the tip of the ice berg. It makes Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot look like pikers.

Posted by Howard Duncan on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 10:12 AM (EDT):

Well written with one comment.

“Bishop William Lori argued that making Catholics fund contraceptives, abortifacient contraception and sterilizations is like making kosher delis serve pork. Actually, it is more like making all of us, and particularly the Anti-Smoking League, fund cigarettes.”

I would be careful to dismiss publically anything the Bishops say in this fight. Both his comparison and yours are correct. The simple words “more like” sweeps him aside and attempts to put you in his place.

Be careful about divisiveness.

Posted by Voice on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 9:40 AM (EDT):

Janet, finally a voice in the wilderness that understands both U.S. law and the faith. The Church is going to lose this battle precisely for what you have written. We are sheep among wolves. And the Bishops are clueless. I respect them and I am obedient to them. But they are clueless and engaged this battle with the wrong weapons and strategy. Fortunately, our kingdom is not of this world.

Posted by Danny Haszard on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 4:55 AM (EDT):

Jehovah’s Witnesses blood transfusion confusion.

Jehovahs Witnesses take blood products now in 2012.
They take all fractions of blood. This includes hemoglobin, albumin, clotting factors, cryosupernatant and cryopoor too, and many, many, others.
If one adds up all the blood fractions the JWs takes, it equals a whole unit of blood. Any, many of these fractions are made from thousands upon thousands of units of donated blood.
Jehovah’s Witnesses can take Bovine *cows blood* as long as it is euphemistically called synthetic Hemopure.
Jehovah’s Witnesses now accept every fraction of blood except the membrane of the red blood cell. JWs now accept blood transfusions.

The fact that the JW blood issue is so unclear is downright dangerous in the emergency room.—
Danny Haszard

There is no an issue Religious Liberty involved with the Contraceptive Mandate. The dreaded Health Care Mandate is a tax enacted by Congress. It does not need to be justified by Natural Law. It is Law. There is simply no part of American Law which states: If you disagree with the use of tax dollars you don’t have to pay the tax. Yes there is a federal ban on using tax dollars for abortion. But that amendment has to be renewed every year. Otherwise Citizens, no matter what their religious views would be paying for abortions.
The obligation to pay the taxes and follow the laws enacted by Congress is all-but-sacred. (During the American Revolution even the Quakers who refused to fight for religious reasons helped fund the war.) For what great principle do you threaten such a covenant? Contraception?? Really???

Posted by RVM on Sunday, Mar 11, 2012 2:13 AM (EDT):

There is is no an issue Religious Liberty involved with the Contaceptive Madate. The dreaded Health Care Mandate is a tax enacted by Congress. It does not need to be justifyed by Natural Law. It is Law. There is simply no part of American Law which states: If you dissagre with the use of tax dollars you don’t have to pay the tax. Yes there is a federal ban on using tax dollars for abortion. But that amendment has to be renewed every year. Otherwise Citizens, no matter what their religious views would be paying for abortions.
The obligation to pay the taxws and follow the laws enacted by Congress is all-but-sacred. (During the American Revolution even the Quakers who refused to fight for religious reasons helped fund the war.) For what great principle do you threaten such a covenant? Contraception?? Really???

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